When family gathered outside the yellow crime-scene tape Sunday (Nov. 29) in the Oak Forest subdivision, they comforted the sobbing teenager who had returned from a hunting trip to find her mother and stepfather dead in their living room at 4805 Brandi St. What she hadn't seen, when she ran out to call 911, were her two half-brothers: In separate bedrooms, they, too, were dead.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said David Mata, 46, fatally stabbed his wife, Kelli Fabre Mata, 40, and their sons, Caden Mata, 4, and Liam Mata, 2, sometime before 11 a.m. It was not immediately certain how David Mata killed himself, but a Sheriff's Office spokesman, Col. John Fortunato, said a straight-blade knife was found under his body.
"I didn't think he would do something like that. He was such a good person," said a friend of Kelli Mata's 18-year-old daughter, who discovered the crime. "He was happy with her." The two friends are seniors at Fisher Middle-High School in Jean Lafitte; Kelli Mata had another daughter as well, the friend said.
Indeed, David Mata's Facebook page is filled with photos of him and his wife, arms around each other and smiling. Their towheaded sons pose proudly in superhero Halloween costumes.
Mata was from Spain, and the couple had been married since April 2012, according to his Facebook profile. The page speaks of the power of keeping God in one's heart.
The couple had rented the house for less than a year, property owner Jason Bordelon said. David Mata worked as a mechanic at a big car dealership on the east bank; his wife was a homemaker. They always paid their rent on time. "Picture-perfect family," Bordelon said.
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/11/marrero_murder-suicide_family.html"I just talked to him on Thanksgiving. I mean, he seemed like he was doing perfectly fine," said a 14-year-old neighbor who cut the Matas' grass. "They were fun. I never saw them argue, really," just minor disagreements. But "once you hear this, you've got to take that to a whole 'nother level."
As people rode by in golf carts, the youth added, "It's kind of hard to picture in this neighborhood." The Oak Forest Community Association scheduled a 5 p.m. prayer vigil.
Outside the Matas' low, brick-ranch house, the couple's vehicles, a black Ford Edge hatchback and a blue Ford F-150 pickup truck, were parked in the driveway. The front door lights were on. Inside the door, as the authorities rolled up the crime tape, a small backpack could be seen hanging on a peg, an even smaller pair of shoes on the floor.